Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books (1984), Edition: 1st, Paperback, 384 pages
Description
Completed in 1136, The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous of all British heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is history and its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. But Geoffrey of Monmouth's powerful evocation of illustrious men and deeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and his influence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare, Dryden and Tennyson.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
Lewis Thorpe opens his introduction to the Penguin edition saying that this book "may be said to bear the same relationship to the story of the Early British inhabitants of our own island as do the seventeen historical books in the Old Testament, from Genesis to Esther, to the early history of the
Finished in 1136 (or so the latest research tells us), it is a history of the Britons from the fall of Troy in 1240 BC (as apparently that's where it all started) to 689 and the death of Cadwallader (the historical king o Wales with this name dies in 682; there is another king (Cædwalla of Wessex) whose history is very close to what Geoffrey of Monmouth describes in the last years of the reign which would explain the slight mix-up). This death allows the Anglo-Saxons to take over and thus to put an end to the almost 2 millennia of history which this book covers - the author even points to which historians to read for the next chapters of the story - Caradoc of Llancarfan for the kings of Wales and William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntington for the Saxon kings (although that specific end note is missing from the most well known manuscript).
While writing the history, Geoffrey took a bit of time to finish another book: Prophetiae Merlini (The Prophecies of Merlin) which is known to had appeared before 1135. When this history came out, that earlier became part of it (together with its individual prologue) - so it seems like "publish an excerpt before the full book as a separate book/story so people get interested and then reuse it as is in a novel/longer text" have been an existing practice even as early as the mid-12th century and not just a 20th century literary journals invention.
The history itself can be almost mind-numbingly boring in places - there are names and places and battles and the same enemies show up again and again. The introduction makes a good job in preparing you for the names you need to watch out for. When I started reading the history I was not sure I want to read the whole of it - I picked it up for the Arthur story so I considered just reading that part and calling it done but decided to give it a chance and start from the start. As it turned out, Merlin is not really in the same timeline with Arthur (both of them never meet) and that there are some interesting bits in the early parts of the history (and not necessarily the giants although they were entertaining as well) and the story references the past so I am happy I read even through the boring parts.
Once Merlin and Utherpendragon showed up on the scene, I settled down to read the first version of a legend that everyone had heard. And as with most first versions, it turns out that the story I thought I knew did not start anywhere close to what I thought it is. Oh, there is a Guinevere and she is unfaithful (although not with who you expect and Geoffrey refuses to tell us any details). There is Merlin. There is Arthur. And there is the island of Avalon and a sword. And you may recognize a few of the names of the knights. But the rest is just missing.
Let's start with Merlin - who is not a wizard but a prophet. He utters his prophecies, he creates Stonehenge by moving the whole thing from Ireland where the giants initially erected it, he changes Utherpendragon to look like another man for a night so he can go and impregnate Ygerna with Arthur and then we never hear his name again. Yes - his actions are these of a man who can make miracles (of some types) so I can see how that got changed into a wizard later but here he is just clever and cunning and touched by God to allow him to see the future and prophesize. In any legend I know of, Merlin is alongside Arthur - but I guess that changed later.
And then Arthur was born, followed by his sister Anna. The only thing that makes him different from the kings before him seem to be the sword he is carrying and the fact that he is unusually successful (and a lot of the prophecies seem to fit him like a glove. So the legend is born. As for the Round Table... it is probably a lot more complicated than that but through the whole history, we are told about knights talking to kings as if they are equal and kings listening to them; about the kings and knights gathering together and discussing things (and we get a lot of speeches from these moments). So Arthur does the same - he follows in the steps of all the other kings that came before him, he invites more knights, especially from other lands to his circle - something natural and normal in these days. Not as much in the Middle Ages I'd guess when this book (and the legends that used it as a base) sprang in - so the round table is kinda here as an idea but we need to wait a couple of decades for Wace to actually name it so and describe it for the first time and then history and time and the numerous authors retelling the story will make it the symbol it is. And there is no Grail - definitely no Grail anywhere - it will be Chrétien de Troyes, half a century after Geoffrey of Monmouth told his own story, who will add that to the legend.
Of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth did not write in a vacuum. He often gives a nod to Gildas, Bede and Nennius - the Latin historians who wrote on the same topics before him. He also claims a book that he was given and is translating (which may have existed - if so, it had been lost; but it may as well have been just the way for Geoffrey of Monmouth to be humble and not to claim that he invented a lot of the stories). And he is really bad at geography - his ideas of how far someone can go and how long it takes between places had perplexed anything trying to research his work for almost a millennia at this point. The fact that his math almost never adds up may actually not be his fault - scribes could have mixed their roman numbers up and typos are not a modern invention.
Thorpe ends the edition I read with two very helpful supplements - a timeline with actual years and names of kings (based on the synchronization with non-British dates which Geoffrey of Monmouth uses extensively) and a name/place index where all references to that name/place are listed and glossed where needed.
Show More
Israelites in Palestine". That's probably the best description of what the book is - it has some history in it, it has some elements which cannot be true and there is that middle ground where a lot of the text lives which may be true - and only time will show what the next digs will find. Finished in 1136 (or so the latest research tells us), it is a history of the Britons from the fall of Troy in 1240 BC (as apparently that's where it all started) to 689 and the death of Cadwallader (the historical king o Wales with this name dies in 682; there is another king (Cædwalla of Wessex) whose history is very close to what Geoffrey of Monmouth describes in the last years of the reign which would explain the slight mix-up). This death allows the Anglo-Saxons to take over and thus to put an end to the almost 2 millennia of history which this book covers - the author even points to which historians to read for the next chapters of the story - Caradoc of Llancarfan for the kings of Wales and William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntington for the Saxon kings (although that specific end note is missing from the most well known manuscript).
While writing the history, Geoffrey took a bit of time to finish another book: Prophetiae Merlini (The Prophecies of Merlin) which is known to had appeared before 1135. When this history came out, that earlier became part of it (together with its individual prologue) - so it seems like "publish an excerpt before the full book as a separate book/story so people get interested and then reuse it as is in a novel/longer text" have been an existing practice even as early as the mid-12th century and not just a 20th century literary journals invention.
The history itself can be almost mind-numbingly boring in places - there are names and places and battles and the same enemies show up again and again. The introduction makes a good job in preparing you for the names you need to watch out for. When I started reading the history I was not sure I want to read the whole of it - I picked it up for the Arthur story so I considered just reading that part and calling it done but decided to give it a chance and start from the start. As it turned out, Merlin is not really in the same timeline with Arthur (both of them never meet) and that there are some interesting bits in the early parts of the history (and not necessarily the giants although they were entertaining as well) and the story references the past so I am happy I read even through the boring parts.
Once Merlin and Utherpendragon showed up on the scene, I settled down to read the first version of a legend that everyone had heard. And as with most first versions, it turns out that the story I thought I knew did not start anywhere close to what I thought it is. Oh, there is a Guinevere and she is unfaithful (although not with who you expect and Geoffrey refuses to tell us any details). There is Merlin. There is Arthur. And there is the island of Avalon and a sword. And you may recognize a few of the names of the knights. But the rest is just missing.
Let's start with Merlin - who is not a wizard but a prophet. He utters his prophecies, he creates Stonehenge by moving the whole thing from Ireland where the giants initially erected it, he changes Utherpendragon to look like another man for a night so he can go and impregnate Ygerna with Arthur and then we never hear his name again. Yes - his actions are these of a man who can make miracles (of some types) so I can see how that got changed into a wizard later but here he is just clever and cunning and touched by God to allow him to see the future and prophesize. In any legend I know of, Merlin is alongside Arthur - but I guess that changed later.
And then Arthur was born, followed by his sister Anna. The only thing that makes him different from the kings before him seem to be the sword he is carrying and the fact that he is unusually successful (and a lot of the prophecies seem to fit him like a glove. So the legend is born. As for the Round Table... it is probably a lot more complicated than that but through the whole history, we are told about knights talking to kings as if they are equal and kings listening to them; about the kings and knights gathering together and discussing things (and we get a lot of speeches from these moments). So Arthur does the same - he follows in the steps of all the other kings that came before him, he invites more knights, especially from other lands to his circle - something natural and normal in these days. Not as much in the Middle Ages I'd guess when this book (and the legends that used it as a base) sprang in - so the round table is kinda here as an idea but we need to wait a couple of decades for Wace to actually name it so and describe it for the first time and then history and time and the numerous authors retelling the story will make it the symbol it is. And there is no Grail - definitely no Grail anywhere - it will be Chrétien de Troyes, half a century after Geoffrey of Monmouth told his own story, who will add that to the legend.
Of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth did not write in a vacuum. He often gives a nod to Gildas, Bede and Nennius - the Latin historians who wrote on the same topics before him. He also claims a book that he was given and is translating (which may have existed - if so, it had been lost; but it may as well have been just the way for Geoffrey of Monmouth to be humble and not to claim that he invented a lot of the stories). And he is really bad at geography - his ideas of how far someone can go and how long it takes between places had perplexed anything trying to research his work for almost a millennia at this point. The fact that his math almost never adds up may actually not be his fault - scribes could have mixed their roman numbers up and typos are not a modern invention.
Thorpe ends the edition I read with two very helpful supplements - a timeline with actual years and names of kings (based on the synchronization with non-British dates which Geoffrey of Monmouth uses extensively) and a name/place index where all references to that name/place are listed and glossed where needed.
Show Less
LibraryThing member upstairsgirl
The Penguin Classics edition benefits from a chatty and informative introduction, which greatly helps the non-specialist make sense of the dense and gory text. I'd have preferred some more in-text annotation to help sort out the firehose of kings and gore, but that's not really the point of Penguin
Show More
Classics. Show Less
LibraryThing member Elizabeth.Michele
Assigned in College, very interesting if not a little difficult to get through.
LibraryThing member Loptsson
A version of the history of Britain that everybody needs to read at one point or another. At times it can be a bit boring, but for the most part it is very interesting and moves briskly. Trying to match events in account with current records can be challenging, and well that is part of the fun of
Show More
the work to be honest. Show Less
LibraryThing member RogueBelle
A really fascinating look at pre-historical, Roman, and Dark Age Britain. The stories are generally little-known, but contribute a great deal to modern literature. Recommended for lit geeks. ;)
LibraryThing member MMWiseheart
This book should be read as a work of literature and not as an actual history. Geoffrey of Monmouth did write the history of the kings, but he also invented a great deal of it. In some cases, it is hard to tell what is fact and what is fiction. That aside, The History of the Kings of Britain is
Show More
absolutely wonderful! This is especially so in the chapters about King Arthur. Until now, I had only heard the typical Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and becomes king, marries Guinevere, and is betrayed by Guinevere and Lancelot. This is a whold different take on the traditional King Arthur. Show Less
LibraryThing member jcovington
Very subtle and clever political attacks on his theologial historian contemporaries.
LibraryThing member imamura.s
I have interesting in Britain`s history. So I read this book. Britain` history is brilliant. but this history have many pains and many pepole` sacrifice. And Britain start democratic government. This is geart thing. becouse Britain extended democratic.
LibraryThing member stillatim
There are too many things to review here. Geoffrey's history is refreshingly well written for a medieval latin work, and the translation is very well done. It's not, of course, 'history' in any sense, and it can be pretty hard work slogging through the parts that don't deal with dramatic or
The other thing to review is this edition. Good translation, but awful apparatus. I really needed something to tell me what, if anything, was historically accurate and what was pure fantasy. As it is, I kind of sort of remembered some names from Bede or recent histories of dark ages Britain (Penda, for instance). I would have loved some footnotes giving me a bit more information; it also would have made the text itself more interesting.
In any case, well worth reading. I'm ready to move on to some later Arthuriana.
Show More
fabulous stories. Parts of this felt like the bible's begats, and nobody needs more of that. The good stories, on the other hand, were genuinely interesting- Arthur of course, but also Locrinus' love for Estrildis, the story of King Leir, and the various narratives of battle trickeration. The other thing to review is this edition. Good translation, but awful apparatus. I really needed something to tell me what, if anything, was historically accurate and what was pure fantasy. As it is, I kind of sort of remembered some names from Bede or recent histories of dark ages Britain (Penda, for instance). I would have loved some footnotes giving me a bit more information; it also would have made the text itself more interesting.
In any case, well worth reading. I'm ready to move on to some later Arthuriana.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MaowangVater
Geoffrey’s history is too much chronology and too little history. He’s left the story out of the history—ironically because so many stories were generated by his chronicle of stick figures squabbling. Geoffrey’s account is about as interesting and listening to someone else reciting their
Show More
genealogy for hours on end. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
An example of the murky boundary between history and romance in Plantagenet times. This is good entertainment, a racy history that would please the Plantagenet court. Modern research has disproved almost everything in it, but it remains an artefact of the period. it definitely provided the basis of
Show More
other author's work. there's another book that has crossed my shelves a good deal like this in tone, and sadly, veracity, Dudo of Saint Quentin's "History of the Normans." If you like this one give Dudo a try. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
Latin
Original publication date
1138
Physical description
384 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0140441700 / 9780140441703
Local notes
= Historia Regum Britanniae